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Translator's Introduction it improbable then, that Jesus, too, might have visited India? But if he did, how, especially in times when there were no conveniences for travelling?
The ancient commerce of India with other countries had brought her people in close connection with those of others, who went to India either by sea or by the caravan route. Many people are skeptical as to there having been any interconnections, in those times, between India and the countries around the Mediterranean, but careful investigations of scholars have conclusively shown that India's gold and silver precious stones, spices and silks had always attracted people of other countries to her. The Hindu and Jain Scriptures bear ample testimony to this—which to the average Christian reader are but myths, while the Bible is to him a veritable record of truth. We will proceed from his standpoint, and prove conclusively that the most valuable, and complete notices of the ancient trade of India are in the Bible.
Moses about 1500 B.C., in Genesis II 11-12, describing the first head, Pison, of the river of Eden says: “That is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. *** There is b’dellium and the onyx stone." B’dellium is the gum resin of two varieties, both natives of Sindh in India; cinnamon mentioned in Proverbs VII. 17, and Song of Solomon iv. 14, is the product of. Ceylon. In Numbers xxiv. 6, Balaam compares the camp of Israel to “A garden by the riverside as the trees of lingaloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters." This ling-aloes is the most precious of all perfumes known in-Sanskrit, Agaru, and in the Hebrew Ahalim and Ahaloth. In the Song of Solomon (Circa B. C. 1000) iv. 13-14, mention is made, besides of myrrh, aloes, cinnamon, frankincense and calamus, of camphire saffron and spikenard, in this and also in I. 14, camphire, the Hebrew copher, is the Egyptian hennah, a native of
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